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After staging a strong rally over the weekend, fuelled by renewed enthusiasm around the EU–US trade deal, Bitcoin cooled off on Monday and consolidated below $119,000, as momentum remained skewed towards Ethereum and the broader altcoin market.
The total market capitalisation of the crypto sector briefly reclaimed the $4 trillion mark before slipping to $3.9 trillion at press time, weighed down by losses across both Bitcoin and altcoins.
Despite the dip, market sentiment climbed to a monthly high of 75, moving deeper into greed territory and rising two points from the previous day. This indicates that investor appetite for risk remains strong.
Overall, the current drawdown appears to reflect a healthy consolidation following the brief rally, likely driven by subtle profit-taking among short-term traders and growing caution ahead of the upcoming FOMC meeting.
By late Asian trading hours on Monday, most top altcoins had surrendered their weekly gains, with only a handful holding on to modest single-digit profits.
Why is Bitcoin stuck?
Bitcoin bulls attempted to reclaim $119,000 multiple times today before retreating towards the $118k support band.
A sharp wave of liquidations triggered the correction, largely concentrated around $119,000, which pressured the price lower.
According to derivatives data, Bitcoin saw more than $55.6 million in total liquidations in the last 24 hours, of which over $41.5 million came from long positions.
Generally, this means that a large number of traders had bet on further upside but were caught offside as the price stalled below resistance.
The 24-hour BTC liquidation heatmap further illustrates this pressure point.
A dense band of liquidation activity was visible between $118,800 and $119,800, signaling a heavy concentration of leveraged long positions.
Bitcoin 24-hour liquidation heatmap. Source: CoinGlass.
When Bitcoin failed to sustain a breakout above this zone, a chain reaction of automatic sell orders was triggered as long positions were forcefully closed by exchanges due to margin calls.
The impact of this was amplified by elevated speculative activity.
Derivatives volume surged over 100% to reach $71.38 billion in the past 24 hours, while open interest rose to $85.67 billion, showing that traders were aggressively entering new positions.
As the price declined, it entered another liquidation-heavy zone around $117,800 to $118,200, also highlighted on the heatmap.
This area has since acted as a temporary support, helping to stabilize the price in late trading hours.
Beyond technical dynamics, broader macro uncertainty also played a role in dampening sentiment.
Traders entered Monday’s session with increased caution ahead of the Federal Open Market Committee meeting, set to conclude on Wednesday.
Equity and crypto markets remain alert to any signals on the Fed’s interest rate path.
While market participants expect no change at this meeting, commentary on possible rate cuts later in 2025, if dovish, could fuel another leg higher; in contrast, a neutral or hawkish tone would likely restrain risk appetite.
For the rally to continue, traders will be watching for a clear break above $119,800, the upper edge of the high-risk liquidation zone.
This level has acted as a key resistance, and reclaiming it would signal renewed strength and reduce the risk of further long-side liquidations.
Some market analysts have also flagged this level as a key area to watch. See below.
$BTC is playing with another major resistance trendline. $119.5K has acted as a strong resistance level, and I think BTC will soon break through it. FOMC meeting is happening this week, and it’ll most likely be dovish (bullish for the markets). Once BTC closes a weekly candle
Will Bitcoin go up?
While short-term momentum has tilted toward Ethereum and altcoins, Bitcoin’s broader structure remains intact, and key technical levels continue to attract close attention from traders.
According to pseudonymous analyst Galaxy, Bitcoin is currently holding above a long-term diagonal resistance line that has historically capped its major bull runs.
In a July 28 post on X, Galaxy suggested that this breakout could mark the beginning of a new phase of price discovery.
Other analysts are also pointing to constructive setups.
Trader Crypto Tony said Bitcoin remains on track for new all-time highs as long as it can hold above $117,000, describing the current price action as a tightening phase with bullish potential.
Meanwhile, Rekt Capital highlighted Bitcoin’s recent weekly close at $119,450 as a possible confirmation of a bull flag breakout.
BTC/USD weekly chart. Source: Rekt Capital.
“Turning ~$119200 into support via a retest could occur next week (maybe even via a wick). However, for the moment BTC needs to avoid an upside wick beyond the Bull Flag Top resistance otherwise price would stay in the Range,” the analyst said.
Meanwhile, well-followed market commentator Ali told followers in a July 28 X post that Bitcoin’s hourly chart has flashed a buy signal on the TD Sequential indicator, suggesting a potential short-term rebound.
The TD Sequential is a momentum-based indicator designed to identify potential trend reversals or exhaustion points by counting a series of consecutive candles in the same direction—making it a tool often used to time short-term market pivots.
Based on the chart Ali shared, the buy signal emerged after a nine-candle downward sequence, which typically signals selling exhaustion and a possible price turnaround.
At the time of writing, Bitcoin was trading at $118,129, down 0.6% in the past 24 hours.
Altcoin market
The altcoin market cap rose 4.8% over the past 24 hours to an intraday high of $1.74 trillion before a sell-off ensued that brought it down 1.8% in the period to $1.63 trillion.
Ethereum (ETH) rallied for the third straight day, crossed the $3,900 mark earlier today for the first time this year, before it lost most of its gains and fell back to a little above $3,800 as of press time, as short liquidations toppled the buying momentum from bulls.
The leading altcoin with a market cap of $461 billion has gained nearly 57% over the last 30 days, far outperforming BTC, which has only managed to hold gains of around 10%.
Continued strong inflows into Ether ETFs for the third week now point to a shift in market sentiment, which could continue to improve investor sentiment ahead.
For context, the spot Ether funds have drawn in $1.85 billion in inflows this month, over twice that of their Bitcoin counterparts.
If these products continue to see such massive inflows, they could continue to bolster a bullish outlook for Ethereum.
Despite the bullish momentum seen lately, it’s still stuck under a key resistance, notably the $4,000 mark, at which it faced rejection multiple times since the beginning of this year.
Analysts note that until ETH manages to close above that level, bears will continue to be in the game.
According to market commentator Ted, Ethereum is “being pulled like a magnet” toward the $4,000 level, where a large cluster of liquidity is waiting.
The analyst pointed to dense ask-side orders just above the $3,900 level.
$ETH liquidity up for grabs around $4,000. Ethereum is being pulled like a magnet. 🚀
Fellow trader ZYN has echoed a similar bullish outlook for ETH. According to the trader, ETH seems to have broken out of a short-term consolidation phase, with historical data suggesting that such a breakout has previously been followed by strong rallies.
As such, ZYN expects Ethereum to target $4,300 by the end of this week.
Ethereum has been leading broader market rallies in recent sessions and could reignite gains if it breaks convincingly above the $4,000 mark.
But for now, its failure to breach that key resistance has weighed on sentiment, with most altcoins giving up earlier gains and only a handful holding on to modest single-digit profits. See below.
Source: CoinMarketCap
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